Irvine, CA – My parents would never buy a Mercedes. Period. They couldn’t understand Jews who would (legitimate adults didn’t buy Volkswagons either back in the 1970s, at least where I lived). In fact, aside from long-dead German composers and pastries from the local German-American bakery – whose owners were probably Jewish – Jewish-Americans wanted nothing to do with Germany. For obvious reasons. Even today, it’s very hard for non-Jews to understand the trauma Jews born in the post-Holocaust generation experienced related to Germany. Our family lived in a strange zone between the past and present. At regular moments throughout the…